Alpha

by Natasha Knight

  I stopped, turning, smelling the alcohol on him even from this distance.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  He grinned, and I would have walked on, but, if he had any information on Zane, then I needed to hear him out. I could handle one sorry drunken slob. I’d done it before.

  “I’m Jake,” he said, tripping over the next step he took, forcing me backward one to avoid having to catch him if he fell. I was close enough to my car now I could lean against it but didn’t. I intended to stand my ground and would show no weakness.

  “Well, Jake, what did you want to tell me about Zane?” A sound from behind me made me turn, and I realized how large and dark the parking lot was. At the corner of it, where one lamp flickered on and off, three people, men from the way they walked, came into view. I wasn’t sure if it was distance that made them not quite clear. It might have been that second beer after what I’d consumed before getting to the bar that did it. But their laughter carried over to where I stood, and just when the light flickered out for the final time, the three took off at a run, suddenly disappearing from view. I blinked hard, but when Jake cleared his throat and I felt him step closer, I turned back to face him, running into the warm cloud of his stale, alcohol-laden breath. I touched my leg, leaning down a little, fingertips grazing the top of my boot. It would take me a second to grab the blade, but I put my other hand against his chest and pushed him backward first. He was just a drunk. I didn’t want to hurt him if I didn’t have to. “Back off, Jake,” I said, shoving a little harder.

  The bar door opened, releasing a blare of music into the night, but it closed just as quickly and I neither heard footsteps nor could I see anyone with Jake’s big body in my way.

  “Why?” he asked, caging me between himself and my car. “Saw you lookin’ at me in there.”

  “I wasn’t looking at you.” A low rumbling noise came from nearer than I liked. I paused, and, for the millionth time since Bryan’s death, since finding that sheet from his notebook, I paused, questioning again the strangeness of what I’d read.

  But Jake was a more pressing problem at the moment. “Step back. I mean it.” I closed my hand over the hilt of the blade, regretting the second beer after the vodka now.

  “Ohhh, play nice, little girl.” He kissed my face as he said it, and I drew the knife from my boot.

  “I said step the fuck back.” I pushed the button on the blade, the quick click of it giving me strength, then pressed it flat against his belly. Adrenaline rushed through me, part of me wondering what the fuck I was doing. I was twenty-two years old, five foot five inches tall, and one hundred twenty pounds, holding a very sharp switchblade against the belly of a man who’d cornered me in a dark parking lot where the only people around were inside the bar. I had a feeling they would turn the other way even if they did come out to see what was going on.

  He put his hands up and stepped backward a little, giving us both space to look down at the knife. My hand trembled, my mind racing. I’d never used it before, and wouldn’t now. I couldn’t. I knew it, and, when I shifted my gaze back to his, I realized he knew it, too. I was pretending to be something — or someone — I wasn’t. And I wasn’t fooling anyone.

  One side of Jake’s mouth curved upward as his eyes narrowed to slits. That grin was all it took for me to make a move. I may not have been able to stab him, but I could hurt him, hurt him enough to get away from him. I brought my knee up hard, forgoing the blade and ramming him in the balls instead.

  “Fuck!” He doubled over, stepping back.

  I pulled the keys out of my pocket, cursing the fact that the remote control no longer worked and I’d have to fumble with getting the key into the lock in the dark. “Bitch!” His hand closed over my arm, and when it did, I swung out, catching him with the tip of the blade.

  “Get away from me, asshole!”

  I was ready to strike again, but before I did, before I had a chance to, he was gone. I mean gone as in tossed aside like a rag doll. My mouth hung open as a huge guy dressed in black jeans and T-shirt hauled Jake off the ground and slammed him backward against a pickup truck.

  “She said step the fuck back, Jake.” The man’s voice was low, but, to my ears, it was a roar, the power it contained almost tangible.

  Zane?

  “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know she was yours —” But before he could get another word out, Zane’s fist smashed into his jaw. Blood splattered, some of it getting on me as Zane let him drop.

  “Get the fuck out of here, Jake. You’re drunk.”

  Jake stumbled up onto his feet, muttering something sounding like a sort of apology. He pulled his keys out of his pocket, but Zane took them. “Walk. Pick up your keys tomorrow.”

  “It’s fuckin’ five miles to my house!”

  “Fresh air will do you good.”

  All this time, I watched his back, saw how much bigger he’d gotten, how the T-shirt he wore stretched tight over thick shoulders and arms. He’d always been big, built well, but now, tattooed flesh covered hard muscle, his clothes hugging him tight as if trying to contain an insuppressible energy.

  Once Jake was far enough away, Zane slowly turned to me. My breath caught as angry black eyes met mine, the almost animal-like frenzy glowing in their depths making me shudder.

  I wasn’t the only one who had changed.

  His face remained tense as he looked me over from head to toe, his black eyes burning into mine just like they used to do. Except one thing was different. There wasn’t anything playful left in them, not anymore. Not a trace of the man — the boy — I’d known.

  “You okay?” His voice came low, and if I’d expected tenderness, I’d have been disappointed.

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry, and it took me a minute to speak. “Fine.” I hadn’t thought about what I’d feel once I found him, once I saw him again for the first time. It surprised me that my primary emotion following the initial shock of seeing how he’d changed was anger.

  “Then please explain to me what the fuck you’re doing here, Aria.”

  So he had recognized me. That was a plus, right? “That’s a warm greeting for someone you haven’t seen in six years.”

  His eyes bored into me, as if trying to read my thoughts, wanting to suck out all he could. He took two steps toward me, scanning me again, but anger was tempered with something else, something that made me shudder, made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. That same rumbling I’d heard earlier came again, and I now realized where it was coming from. It was him, the sound emanating from his chest. It made me think of that night, when he’d given in to me. When he’d taken me to that hotel room. The night that would have been the best of my life except for the nightmare it had turned into.

  I found myself leaning forward a little, inhaling. I’d forgotten his smell. Forgotten I’d ever paid attention to it at all.

  “You don’t belong here, Aria. Jake was evidence of that,” his hard voice berated.

  I had a right to be angry. He was the one who’d taken off. Disappeared and never came back, even after what happened to Bryan and my mother. But, right now, he was the one who sounded pissed as fuck.

  I brought my attention to the switchblade, needing a moment to collect myself. This wasn’t what I’d expected. He wasn’t what I’d expected.

  My hands shook as I closed the blade and my mouth tightened. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Fuck you can,” he said, taking a single step before gripping my wrist with one hand and confiscating the switchblade with the other.

  “Hey, that’s mine.”

  “Not in my bar, it’s not. No weapons.”

  “I’m not in your fucking bar.”

  “You’re on my property.” His hand still wrapped around my wrist, he bent to peer inside my car where the empty vodka bottle lay on the floor. “You drinking, Aria?” He searched my face, and I couldn’t help wondering if he still felt what had been between us from day one. The thing he’d denied
for too long. “You even old enough to drink?”

  “Fuck you, Zane.” Of all the possibilities I’d considered, this definitely wasn’t the reception I had expected. “I’m twenty-two.” He was two years and a few months older than me. I could even remember his birthday. Had he forgotten everything?

  He scrutinized me, making a point of doing it, holding me just far enough away and taking his time. “Look at you, all grown up. Twenty-two with a whole lot of attitude to go with it.” Taking hold of both my arms, he shoved me against my car, forcing me to lean back a little when he pushed his chest against mine, his eyes feral. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you if I hadn’t come out here just now?” He licked his lips and gave me another, hungrier once-over. “You’re not a little girl, anymore, Aria, that’s for sure. You know what happens to big girls who go poking around where they don’t belong?” He said the words so close to my face that I felt them, felt his breath on me, the heat of him, the power radiating from him. “Do you, Aria? Or were you hoping to find out?”

  I stared up at him, at his black eyes. This was a different Zane than the one I remembered. He had a coldness to him, a biting edge, an aggression that hadn’t been there before. That rumble came from his chest again, and he grinned. My breathing labored as he held me trapped between his body and my car.

  “Age is just a number,” I mumbled, the tension between us still there, like it always had been, just heavier now. Maybe that was because there was so much more at stake.

  Zane shook his head and took a deep breath in, about to speak, but then something must have caught his attention because his grip on me tightened and he stared off in the distance, his brow creasing.

  “And I wasn’t trying to find trouble. I was looking for you.” There. I’d said it.

  “Quiet.” He kept his gaze fixed past me as he spoke.

  “No. You owe me some answers —”

  “Shh.”

  I strained my ears, listening for what he was obviously hearing, but I only heard the sounds of crickets and cars along the highway.

  After a moment, he turned to me, his expression different. All the aggression was gone, the tension between us having dissipated so that when he spoke again, it was like we were strangers. “Where are you staying? I’ll have one of the guys take you home.”

  “No. I came to find you, and I intend on talking to you before I go anywhere. You owe me that much, don’t you think? I mean, you just disappeared after Bryan and my mom...” I choked on the last part, feeling my head spin.

  I could see a struggle begin inside him, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

  “I think you’re drunk, Aria. And playing with things you shouldn’t be playing with.” He held up my knife as if making his point. “Let’s go.” Gripping my arm, he walked me back toward the bar.

  “Let me go, I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers from you.”

  Effortlessly holding on to me, he opened the door and called out to the bartender. “Fly, send Mark out here. Tell him to get the keys to the truck.”

  “Sure thing, Z.” The bartender shook his head. I swear I heard him chuckle.

  “Fly? The bartender’s name is Fly?” I asked, the scent of cigarette smoke making me nauseous.

  Zane turned back to me, his eyes resting on my shoulder. His expression was unreadable, but I followed his gaze down, seeing how his grip had pulled my jacket and T-shirt aside, baring a part of the tattoo on my shoulder. The black rose.

  When he returned his gaze to mine, I thought that he knew why I was here, that he had expected me to come all along, and that he had the answers I searched for. But it was a fleeting thought and as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

  I managed to suck in another lungful of secondhand smoke, and, for the first time since I’d started on the vodka earlier that night, I felt sick.

  “You don’t look so good, Aria,” Zane said, holding me at arm’s length and walking me a few steps from the entrance. “How much did you drink before you got here?”

  “None of your fucking business.” He let me go then and not a moment too soon because my stomach heaved and I felt it coming. Doubling over, I vomited against the wall of the bar.

  “Fuck.”

  I squatted down, gripping one of the supports as another wave passed through me. Zane gripped my hair and held it away from my face, muttering something about not being able to hold my liquor, and amateurs. Well, he could go fuck himself. I didn’t care what he thought of me.

  I didn’t.

  Chapter Two

  Zane

  I’d expected she’d come. Hell, I never doubted she’d find me, in time. I’d been with her that night. We’d found them together. And I’d been the one who’d disappeared.

  I was the only one with answers. Question was, how much could I tell her?

  I’d been too late to help Bryan, and the fact that they’d killed Heather, his mother, it was wrong. It went against all the rules.

  At least Aria hadn’t been in the house when it had happened. But where she was, where I’d taken her, well, that was another story.

  I’d killed the sons of bitches who’d been sent to do the job, and then I’d walked away. I’d walked away from all of it. I wasn’t a part of their world anymore. I had nothing but contempt for them. For all of them.

  But I knew she’d come. That one day, she’d find me, and that she had every right to. Seeing her, though, that was different. It made me remember the night at the hotel, the mistake I’d made. And now, here she was, flesh and blood, pulling a knife on someone who could snap her neck in a heartbeat. She had not a fucking clue what she was getting into as she clutched her stomach, puking her guts out on the front doorstep of my bar.

  Fuck.

  “I feel like I’m going to die.”

  I wrapped her long, jet-black hair around my fist to keep it away from her face, remembering how the last time I’d done that I’d had my cock stuffed inside her mouth. I blinked that too-potent image away. “You’re not going to die. You’re just going to feel like shit for a while.”

  She groaned.

  “You done?”

  In answer, she heaved.

  I winced, turning away. “How much did you drink exactly, Aria?”

  She sat down clutching her head, leaning against the support pillar. She shifted her gaze to mine, her hazel eyes bloodshot, the pink making them more green than brown now. Her flushed cheeks stood out against her sickly pale face. The door opened, and a couple walked out, curling their noses at the sight and smell, leaving quickly.

  “All right, just stay here. Let me get someone to clean this up and I’ll take you home.”

  She closed her eyes and curled up at my feet. I wondered how she’d found me and questioned her logic, her sense of self-preservation at coming into the bar in the first place. I never put anyone at the door or they would have stopped her, but not a lot of folks wandered in. Certainly not anyone who didn’t belong there. We were a scary bunch.

  Not scary enough to deter Aria Hale though.

  I went into the bar to find Mark on his way out. “Get a bucket of soapy water. A couple of them.”

  He peeked out behind me and made a face.

  “I’ll take her home,” I said. Mark lifted a brow, and I hastily added, “Kid sister of an old friend of mine.”

  Fly peered over my shoulder at her. “So she was telling the truth.”

  I only nodded.

  “Doesn’t look like a kid to me, Z,” Fly said, his eyebrows going up. He was almost ten years older than me and the only person in the world I trusted to have my back. But the flipside was he expected the truth, all of it. I’d left some things out where Aria was concerned, and now wasn’t the time for a powwow.

  “Drop it, Fly.”

  “What kind of name is Fly?” Aria slurred. I turned to find her leaning against the pillar again, her eyes half-closed.

  Fly smiled. “Fly on the wall, baby. I see it all, I hear it all, a
nd I know it all.”

  The face she made had me stifling a laugh.

  “How about I take her home and you get the mess cleaned up, seeing as she’s an old friend and all,” Mark said.

  He was joking, but it still got my hackles up. “No. Got the keys to the truck?” I couldn’t take her on the back of my bike. Not in the state she was in.

  “Fine,” Mark said, sulking as he tossed me the keys.

  “Let’s go, Aria.”

  She made a sound, trying to push herself up.

  “You and me are having a talk once you’re sober.”

  She tried to say something but was having trouble forming words so I hauled her to her feet then hoisted her up, cradling her in my arms and walking to the truck. I’d have tossed her over my shoulder if I was sure she was done puking, but I wasn’t.

  “Aria, where am I taking you?”

  “Hmmm?” Her head bobbed to the side as soon as I set her down in the passenger seat.

  “Home. Or a hotel maybe? Where are you staying?”

  “Oh.”

  “Aria? Try to focus.” I patted her face, but she gave a little snore.

  Crap. I didn’t want this. Not now. I wasn’t ready to face this yet. I wasn’t ready to face her because with her came a past I would never be ready to face.

  “Aria,” I tried again, but nothing. “You’d better not puke in my truck.”

  She was out. I strapped her in, shut the door, and walked over to the driver’s side. Before climbing in, I listened, hearing the calls again. We weren’t alone; shifters roamed this terrain. Hell, most of them frequented my bar. That’s why the no-weapons rule. That and no fighting or you’re banned for life. No exceptions. I wasn’t dealing with any gang rivalry, and that was what life had become for the packs. We lived like street gangs. Or they did. I’d left after the killings. I had no pack anymore, even if they still claimed I belonged to them.

  It should never have happened — Bryan’s brutal killing, his mom’s murder. I should never have left them unprotected. I’d done my job well. Too well. I was a hunter of people and I’d hunted them. After more than fifteen years in hiding, I’d found the Hales.